Fledgling Hearts
by junk-elixer
Summary: I've never had much experience with love and so my life is a pattern. It is a beat, unchanging. That is, until three strange events one Spring day involving alarm clocks, instincts, thieves and notes begin to turn the tracks in a different direction.


**Note: **My first fanfiction (although I've loved writing for a while), I hope that you enjoy it. Constructive criticism, opinions, ideas, are all welcomed. Thank you for reading!

**Disclaimer:** All credit for the characters and places go to Harvest Moon, none are of my creating. 

**[ CHAPTER 1 ]**

Let me tell you, I've always been the girl next door. The girl that was there for her friends, that would climb five stories to your window and give you a hug at five in the morning if you needed it... but I never got much back.

I blame this often on my plain appearance. Typical brown hair, t-shirts and grass-stained clothes that wouldn't impress anyone. Even my name, Jill, is boring.

I am not beautiful, and so I don't draw attention to me like Muffy does who attracts men to her like bees to honey. I'm often envious of her, listening to her spew hours upon hours of who did what and "oh, it was so sweet, what should I do?"

But I don't show it because all I have, the only characteristic of mine that can be seen as enjoyable, is niceness. I'm not funny or gorgeous or charismatic or smart. Instead, I am shy and quiet and meek.

So all I can do for myself is be kind to others, and I am sure that it is the only thing about me that anyone could ever like.

Because of this my life has been simple. It has been plain and dotted with nothing but a few female companions here and there. My days consist of nothing but farming and chit-chatting, mindless doting with Lumina and Muffy and sitting outside in the grass listening to Gustafa strum at his guitar.

But on the third day of Spring of the new year, something changed, and my life took a turn off the path that it had been steadily treading all my life.

Three things indicated this.

First of all, I woke up and it was eleven in the morning and there had been no clanking of metal to wake me up. My alarm clock is always set to chime at 6AM, and although this may not sound peculiar to you, that little device has been reliably serving me since I was the young age of twelve. I am eighteen now, you do the math.

Anyhow, I picked it up and tapped at the red metal exterior before flipping it over to find any sort of probable cause. It was set to exactly 11:30PM. I was perplexed and did nothing for a moment but turn the device over and over in my hands.

Had I done something to it? Had some little village brat come and done this to mess with me? I always locked the door, but the little keyhole was rusted and easy to break into. I sighed, winding the little red needle in the clock back to 6AM before stretching and heading out to take care of my animals and water my crops.

The second peculiarity was Gustafa that afternoon. I've never much considered Gustafa a guy in the ways of romance and perhaps that's why I'm always so comfortable around him. He and I had been good friends since the day I'd moved into Forget-Me-Not Valley and so I knew him quite well.

"Something's happening today." He informed after ending a quick song on his guitar.

I looked up from the ocean that my eyes had been fixated on and could manage nothing more than a confused, "Huh?"

Gustafa shrugged. "I don't know what it is... just an instinct." He said before carefully picking a moondrop flower from the soil, making sure that the plant stayed in place with its roots. "Happy Spring, Jill." He said, handing it to me. "But I really must be going."

In my memory, Gustafa's 'instincts' had almost always been correct. It was as good as an animal's foresight to natural disaster and so I took it to heart as I accepted the flower. "Thanks, I'll be seeing you around then." He nodded before disappearing into his hut, a waft of incense and smoke drifting out as he opened the door.

But it perplexed me. When has Gustafa ever had something he needed to do?

Still, I had to get along with my day and first, I would have to bring the flower he had given me back to my house and place it in a vase. It was a routinely thing he did, picking a new flower every season. He always made sure to keep the roots intact and would constantly remind me that this would keep it fresh and alive in a vase for far longer.

And, of course, that it was inhumane to dissect a flower by severing it from its roots.

"Jill!"

The voice intercepted me when I was about to enter my farm and I turned to see Lumina, her face red as if she were embarrassed and her eyebrows knitted together in angry.

"What's wrong?" I asked, giving her my full attention.

"Oh, it's that pompous little ass, Rock! He is SO full of himself, I absolutely cannot- I just- The NERVE of him!" She spewed, her sentences coming out choppy as if hacked by a butcher knife as she stumbled over her words.

"Really, Lumina, I can't understand a thing you're saying..." I told her, doing the best to use a tone that would calm her down.

It worked and the girl took a few huffy deep breaths before the color finally flushed out of her face and her fists were no longer clenched tightly in balls. "Oh, I've really got so much to do... stop by tonight, won't you?" She asked, rubbing her temples as the anger drained out of her.

"Will do, tell me everything then." I told her before waving and heading back to my farm.

I did various unimportant things like checking on my animals, checking on my crops, re-checking everything a third and maybe even a fourth time, sniffing the flower Gustafa had given me (it was sweet and had a nice, subtle fragrance), laying in bed and staring at my ceiling...

But mostly those things were done to keep me busy. Mostly, I thought of what Gustafa had said.

Something strange was happening; a transformation of sorts, perhaps? And yet although he had explained it as though it would be happening in a general sense, I could not get it out of my head that what he really meant was that something was going to happen... to _me_.

"CRAP!" I opened my eyes to find that I had accidentally dozed and had fallen asleep and when I looked at my clock it was already 11:20 at night.

I whirled out of my bed, hit my toe, screamed and cursed before flying out the door. My number one priority has always been pleasing my friends and nothing could possibly bring me down more than a failure to do that.

"Jill, where are you off to at 11:30 at night?" It was Muffy, shouting out the window of the Blue Bar. I didn't have time, I pointed to the villa and continued to run, making it up the hill in less than a minute. Hopefully, Lumina was still awake and wiling to share with me the news that she'd wanted to.

It wasn't Lumina I saw when I first entered the courtyard to the villa, however, but a strange silver-haired fellow.

And this encounter was the third and final strange occurence that Spring day, the thing that marked the beginning of a change in my life.

"You're alone?" The stranger said, he eyed me down with irises of emerald green and I couldn't help but shrink back at his presence.

I didn't respond.

"A lady such as yourself shouldn't be out so late without a companion. " He continued, stepping closer and closer to me. I shrank further back, my heart racing.

"W- who are you?" I stumbled over my words, my face flushed red and I instinctively lifted my hands to cover it up. I was getting so flustered, but why?

In the inner corners of my mind, I knew the answer: he was attractive with his sleek silver hair and piercing green eyes, and he spoke with such a strange coax in his voice - smooth, like liquid silver.

But I did not want to think I was so easily captivated.

"I'm a prince, you see, so that all maidens can fall in love." He gloated, smiling as if my reactions entertained him.

The words pulled me out of the spell and for a moment, all I could do was stare blankly before saying, "_What?_"

He couldn't be serious.

His ego had smashed away at any sort of heart-palpitating emotion I could have felt.

However, before he could say anything more and before I could wrap my head around what kind of narcissistic person he was and how humiliating it was that I'd been drawn to him for even a second, Lumina burst out of the villa. She was screaming, yelling and shouting at the top of her lungs.

"Stop him! JILL! Stop him, he's a thief! Thief!" Her voice could have shaken the trees it was so loud and her speed - never had I seen Lumina run so fast. "STOP!" She commanded again as she caught up to the place where me and the stranger, the thief, were standing.

The silver-haired housebreaker chuckled softly before looking to face Lumina. "My dear, you shouldn't spoil such a pretty face with anger."

At this, Lumina was completely taken aback, her eyes widening and her mouth parting just a little as a rosey blush sprung across her cheeks.

"I'm Skye, phantom thief. Good day to you." He winked before disappearing down the path and I was caught in the same stun that Lumina was only moments before, my heart pounding and my mind racing as if caught under some sort of ridiculous voodoo magic.

It was bipolar, a mix of heart-throb and disgust, and I was ashamed to even admit it to myself.

A gasp coming sharply from Lumina drew me away from my embarrassment, startling me as I turned to see her running after the thief.

I quickly followed only to meet up with a disgruntled Lumina next to the inn. "He got away..." She sighed, her face was sunken and dreary and she was notably upset for having been entranced by him. "Damn, what the hell? What is it about him...?" She asked as if I hadn't been caught under the same spell, as if I could possibly give her the answer.

Instead, I gave a weak "I... don't know." My knees felt wobbly and my whole body was tired. I was not sure if this was because of the stranger's sleek words or because of having such a close encounter with someone - no, some_thing_ as vile as a thief, or even both.

"Right, I... I'm tired, Jill. I'll speak to you tomorrow." Her voice contained as much exhaustion as mine and she dragged her feet as she headed back up the path to the villa.

"Bye," I turned away and started towards my farm as well. Perhaps when I went to bed I would wake up and find it all a dream. After all, nothing so exciting could ever happen to someone like me.

Upon arriving at my house, however, a peculiar thing caught my eye. It was a note attached to the door by a single silver little nail and written upon it was the strangest little message; one that clarified all three events of the day as something that was not mere coincidence.

**/END CHAPTER**


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